When a Child Is Born Johnny Mathis

” When a Child Is Born ” is by Johnny Mathis ( John Royce “Johnny” Mathis ), the American singer of pop music and jazz.
He has sold more than 350 million records worldwide, a record that makes Johnny the third most significant selling artist of the 20th Century. He has recorded six albums of Christmas music and has cited Bing Crosby ( of White Christmas fame ) as one of his musical influences.
The song’s English lyrics were written by Fred Jay ( Friedrich Alex Jacobson ). Fred was an Austrian pop music lyricist and wrote many of Boney M’s hits including Rasputin and Ma Baker. It is thought that Fred wrote over 900 songs during his career, he died in 1988.
The music composition for the single is credited to Ciro Dammicco, also known as Zacar. He founded and was the leader of Italy’s Daniel Sentacruz Ensemble.
” When a Child Is Born ” is a popular Christmas song, one that is played on the radio every year. The song started life as ” Soleado “, written in 1974 by Ciro Dammicco, which he adapted, along with Dario Baldan Bembo, from an earlier 1972 work of his called ” Le Rose Blu ” ( The blue rose ).
Lyrically there is no actual mention of Christmas itself, but instead, the song focuses on the importance of looking forward to a child being born somewhere.
However, the way the lyrics are constructed hints that the song is about the birth of Jesus Christ. Mentioned is the tiny star that ” lights up way up high “, which some say refers to the Star of Bethlehem which led the wise men to where Christ lay and where they presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
This version of ” When a Child Is Born ” was produced by Jack Gold. Jack was a British film and television director born in London, England. He is probably best known for his television work on the adaptation of Quentin Crisp’s 1968 book The Naked Civil Servant in 1975.
The song was a commercial success for Johnny. In the United States the song appeared in both Christmas 1976 and ’77 seasons of Record World survey, one of the three leading music industry magazines in the US ( ceased publication on April the 10th, 1982 ). Johnny managed to reach number 123 and racked up ten chart weeks.
In the United Kingdom, the song entered the UK Singles Chart on the 13th of November 1976 reaching Number One ( on Christmas Day ) and holding the top spot for three weeks. It spent six weeks in the Top Ten and a total of twelve weeks on the UK chart.
After selling 850,000 copies, it was the only Number One single in the UK Singles Chart for Johnny. In 1981 he recorded ” When a Child Is Born ” as a duet with Gladys Knight, but it only managed to reach number seventy-nine on the UK chart.